Latest news

According to new reports, DreamWorks Animation studio is in talks to merge with major toymaker Hasbro.

Hasbro, the second-largest toymaker in the world behind Mattel, could certainly have some nice synergies after a merger given the ability to create consumer products off the popular films from DWA including How to Train Your Dragon, Madagascar, Shrek and Kung Fu Panda. Hasbro recently announced that most of its revenue growth has come via toys related to movie franchises.

DreamWorks Animation could also expand into TV and live-action films, categories in which they have actively been trying to enter in the past couple of years.

Habro has made good partnerships in recent years for their properties to be turned into films, including the Transformers, GI Joe, Candyland and Magic: The Gathering.

Large record label Warner Music Group and major Chinese web portal and social network Tencent have agreed to a deal for the industry's "first ever master distribution partnership between a major music company and a leading Internet provider in mainland China."

Tencent will distribute WMG's large catalog and manage new track releases for "all legitimate audio services" in mainland China.

China has long been infamous for rampant software, music and movie piracy and the record labels recently stated that China accounted for just 1 percent of all global revenues for music in 2013, a shockingly low number given that there are over 1.3 billion people living in China.

There are a few questions about how the new deal will work, however. Most streaming audio services in China are free and are ad-supported, begging the question of how the revenue share will work between the partners. Another question is how WMG will monetize its catalog through Tencent's QQ microblogging platform, which has over 800 million active users but does not have an active music-sharing strategy.

According to new reports, the servers for the deepnet drug marketplace Silk Road 2.0 were housed in Lithuania.

Earlier this month, the FBI and Europol took down over 400 illicit .onion domains, arrested 17 people and most of the major marketplaces were taken offline. Drug markets Cloud 9 and Hydra were taken offline as were contraband marketplaces Pandora, Blue Sky, Topix, Flugsvamp, Cannabis Road, and Black Market. In addition, money laundering sites Cash Machine, Cash Flow, Golden Nugget and Fast Cash were also taken down.

Despite the success of Operation Onymous for law enforcement, those on the other side have been scrambling to answer how such a raid could have occurred. There have been worries that the entire Tor network could be compromised, meaning the end of the deepnet as it stands currently.

According to reports, the FBI found the servers in May, worked with Lithuanian authorities to temporarily take them down so they could clone the data and from there began down the path of taking down the Silk Road and other marketplaces. Apparently, the servers were registered to Blake Benthall using his own personal email of blake@benthall.net. Benthall was arrested this month along with the others and now faces at least 35 years in prison.

Announced months ago, Google's YouTube music subscription service "YouTube Music Key" is now available in beta.

The service offers full albums to stream, including offline listening, for $10 per month. In addition, the subscription also gives access to Google Play Music, which has a 30 million track catalog and also allows you to upload your own tracks to build your library.

YouTube Music Key will also allow you to watch music videos via the app, as well.

The app is launching in the US, UK, Portugal, Italy, Finland, Ireland and Spain and beta testers get the first 6 months free and then a promotional monthly price of $7.99.

Google has finally begun rolling out the new Android 5.0 Lollipop update to its Nexus reference devices.

As of this morning, Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 7 (both generations) and the Nexus 10 will start seeing the OTA operating system update. So far, the Nexus 9 and the Nexus 6 are the only devices to receive the updates officially via Google.

In addition, the update has been added to AOSP, so you can download it manually.

To be expected, the rollout will be done in waves, meaning it should take a few days before everyone gets it.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who specializes in Apple, says the rumored 12.9-inch "iPad Pro" will not ship until the Q3 2015, after going into mass production in the Q2.

The analyst says the Pro will require an oxide panel to achieve its "high resolution, quick response, and high color saturation," and Apple needs plenty of time to ensure sufficient yield and assembly, pushing delivery time back.

In addition, Kuo believes Q1 2015 sales of iPads will be mediocre at best, with Apple expected to sell under 10 million, a 54.5 percent drop year-over-year.

"We believe that, in a major shift, while Apple (US) used to be able to use new form factor designs to boost demand, it has failed to do so this time around," Kuo said. "The lighter and thinner iPad Air 2 will face strong headwinds in increasing sales in 1Q15, we believe; we also hold that this means that iPad, along with the entire tablet market, is faced with structural challenges characterized by a lack of new applications and market saturation. We don't think these challenges will be easily overcome by upgraded specs, new form factor designs or lower prices."

Microsoft, via their Lumia Twitter account, has confirmed that Windows Phone 8 devices will be getting Windows 10 in the future.

When Windows Phone launched, early adopters were screwed when they could not upgrade from the first-gen Windows Phone 7.x to Windows 8.x due to hardware restrictions. Basically, Microsoft told early adopters "thanks for beta testing but now that the OS is good, you have to buy again." Thankfully, that will not be an issue for current buyers.

Interestingly, the company made sure to note that the update will be Windows 10, not Windows Phone 10, seemingly confirming that the next Windows iteration will be a completely cross-platform option.

Here's the tweets:

A Chinese programmer has installed Windows 95 onto his iPhone 6 Plus, a move that falls squarely in the very fun but completely useless category.

Using a software tool called 'iDos,' forum user xyq058775 installed the nearly two decade old operating system on his brand new hardware.

The FAQ, translated via Google via Crunch:

1.Q: Can I install WINDOWS XP? A: The answer is yes you can, but certainly not by idos, because idos simply simulate the DOS environment is not the true sense of the virtual machine, so the system is more difficult to run the DOS and idos simulation environment and do not have XP running basic environmental needs, so later if transplanted XP system, then I will make use of their leisure time with friends ios platform to write a plug-in to run XP virtual machine system.
2.Q: Why are you doing this? Why not use Remote Desktop. A: First, to show that this kind of thing tall Remote Desktop is currently no support on win98 systems, not to use during system installation and tool methods have sent me here.

3.Q: Why is the process I installed the explorer process wrong? A: Because idos simulator only simulates the 16's dos environment, although win98 16/32 hybrid system but Explorer and exe process large part needed is a 32-bit environment, so when they need 32 program calls some system environment variables and support libraries when an error occurs, LZ modify some of the resource is designed to allow him to run in idos environmental good, However, this modification will change the part of the machine, which has led some device errors when using LZ modify the good image. After LZ according to everyone's feedback slowly improve!

Another major institution has been hit my a major cyber security attack.

The United States Postal Service (USPS) was the victim and 800,000 employees appear to have had all their personal information taken including social security numbers.

"The intrusion is limited in scope and all operations of the Postal Service are functioning normally," USPS spokesman David Partenheimer said in a statement.

While "limited in scope," nearly a million employees' names, addresses, SSN, and phone numbers were taken, which could sadly lead to batch attempts at identity theft. In addition, customers who called the USPS customer support line from January through August have also had their info taken, depending on what they provided to the service reps. What that means is there are likely hundreds of thousands of email addresses out there now.

The USPS says the attack was first found in September, but they waited two months before coming forward because "communicating the breach immediately would have put the remediation actions in jeopardy." A blanket statement like that will likely do nothing to appease the fears of employees whose socials are now in the wild.

Employees will all receive one year of free credit monitoring.

Microsoft finally unveiled their first non-Nokia branded Lumia device today, the 535, including a familiar look but with Microsoft logos everywhere.

At $140 USD (€110) it is clear the device is aimed at everyone, and it will be an upgrade from previous 5-series Lumia devices.

Microsoft's latest has a 5-inch IPS display, a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 200, 8GB internal storage (expandable to 128GB with microSD), 1GB RAM and dual 5MP cameras. It also includes dual-SIM capabilities for European and Asian consumers who can take advantage.

The device runs on Windows 8.1, and as expected, Microsoft has bundled its suites including Office, Skype and OneNote.

Microsoft is releasing the phone in China, Hong Kong and Bangladesh this month, with a more global rollout expected before the end of the year.

LG has unveiled its new mid-range Aka smartphone, a strange device that actually has eyes that have their own "emotions."

There are four different Aka phones, with different colors and different personalities. The yellow phone is called Eggy, the white phone is Wooky, the pink phone is YoYo and the black phone is Soul.

The eyes act as a notification bar of sorts. They look down when you haven't read your messages/emails/etc, and the colors change indicating different emotions.

Featuring a 5-inch 720p display, the devices runs on Android 4.4, a quad-core 1.2GHz processor, 1.5GB RAM, dual 2MP/8MP cameras, 16GB internal storage, LTE, a 2610 mAh battery and a microSD slot.

Launching in South Korea, the device goes on sale this month for KRW 500,000 (about $450).

Last week, pop artist Taylor Swift made headlines when she removed all her music from popular streaming service Spotify, stating that the best way for fans to listen is to buy the CD or download the album.

Spotify has responded to Swift, revealing that the company has paid over $2 billion to artists, labels, songwriters and publishers; a hefty sum.

In the response, Spotify brings up many good points, most notably that the average paying subscriber for Spotify is under 27 years old and never paid for music in the past, growing up in a piracy prevalent environment.

Here is the response in its entirety, which is worth reading:

Taylor Swift is absolutely right: music is art, art has real value, and artists deserve to be paid for it. We started Spotify because we love music and piracy was killing it. So all the talk swirling around lately about how Spotify is making money on the backs of artists upsets me big time. Our whole reason for existence is to help fans find music and help artists connect with fans through a platform that protects them from piracy and pays them for their amazing work. Quincy Jones posted on Facebook that "Spotify is not the enemy; piracy is the enemy". You know why? Two numbers: Zero and Two Billion. Piracy doesn't pay artists a penny – nothing, zilch, zero. Spotify has paid more than two billion dollars to labels, publishers and collecting societies for distribution to songwriters and recording artists. A billion dollars from the time we started Spotify in 2008 to last year and another billion dollars since then. And that's two billion dollars' worth of listening that would have happened with zero or little compensation to artists and songwriters through piracy or practically equivalent services if there was no Spotify – we're working day and night to recover money for artists and the music business that piracy was stealing away.

LG has announced that its flagship G3 smartphone will be getting the Android 5.0 Lollipop update starting next week.

Poland will be the first nation to receive the update, followed by more major markets in the coming weeks.

"LG is absolutely committed to giving our customers the best mobile experiences available and bringing Android Lollipop to G3 owners as soon as possible is a top priority," said Dr. Jong-seok Park, President and CEO of the LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. "The new features and improvements in Android 5.0 will bring a whole new user experience to the G3 and make it even better than it already is."

There was no word on the update for other LG devices.

Blizzard has announced their first new IP in 17 years, "Overwatch," a team-based FPS with a plethora of characters.

The design of the game looks similar to Team Fortress 2, with a colorful art style. The game is a six vs. six shooter, and each playable character has their own special abilities. Each character also has a map of their own based on their back story.

Blizzard says the game will not be a standard shooter, however. "We wanted to make the game less lethal," said Blizzard vice president Jeff Kaplan at a BlizzCon panel. "You will die. That's part of the game. We're just hoping that you die less frequently than in current modern military shooters. We wanted to give players other things to do than put crosshairs on targets. We know not everyone is great at that and that's what drives a lot of people out of other shooters."


For example, Overwatch will include a "Payload" objective (deliver the bomb successfully) and "Point Capture" (capture different control points).

Here is the first official trailer:



There's great information about the characters here. Beta gamers can sign up starting next year.

According to sources, Tesla and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk is looking to bring Internet to even the most remote areas of the world via 700 small satellites.

Supposedly, Musk is in talks with Florida and Colorado officials in efforts to construct a satellite factory. Musk is working with ex-Googler Greg Wyler, who led Google's satellite division and now runs WorldVu Satellites, a company that owns part of the radio spectrum used for satellite Internet.

There has never been a fleet so large, but the satellites are small and will weigh under 250 pounds each. Each satellite will cost under $1 million to produce, and SpaceX would use their rockets to release the satellites into orbit.

Musk and Wyler are not the first to make such plans, but they may be the closest. Google and Facebook have also announced plans to use balloons, drones or satellites to get Internet to remote areas.