Half Monk

Few things in gaming are more frustrating than trying to play the latest AAA title on launch day. More often than not, it ends up being an exercise in patience as traffic predictably overloads the game’s servers which in turn prevents you from being able to play with your friends (or in some cases, at all). The general consensus among gamers is that companies are well aware that their servers won’t hold up under the load of launch day but the bean counters – those in the company that only care about money – won’t allow them to spend the extra funds for additional servers ahead of time. During a recent interview with Game Revolution during the 2014 Tokyo Game Show, Battlefield Hardline creative director Ian Milham was asked about the launch stability of the game. The question didn’t surprise him and yes, he said the game is going to work on launch day. Milham pointed out that they began working on the game more than a year before Battlefield 4 came out. What’s more, they’ve already had one successful beta and plan to have another beta on every platform they ship on. While he did admit that there may be some hiccups due to the size of the game and the fact that it’ll arrive on five different platforms, he is very confident that Hardline will be devoid of any major issues. Could EA actually set precedent with Battlefield Hardline in which other companies must answer to? You know, where the norm is to actually get enough servers ready for a game’s launch ahead of time? It’s hard to tell by Milham’s comments as he seems to be focusing more on the game itself instead of the infrastructure that’ll be needed to support multiplayer.

Earlier today, Microsoft accidentally published their website detailing the impending Technical Preview of the next version of Windows, in the process revealing a new name for the OS. That name is 'Windows TH', as seen in the tabbed header alongside previous versions such as Windows 8.1 and Windows 7. It's entirely possible that this name is simply a placeholder for an official name that will be revealed in the future. However it is interesting that Microsoft didn't simply list the Technical Preview under 'Windows 9', a name that many people were expecting Microsoft would use for their next operating system release. 'TH' is likely short for 'Threshold', which is Microsoft's internal codename for the successor to Windows 8.1. The major update to Windows includes the return of the Start menu, numerous interface changes, virtual desktops, Cortana integration, and more. It's also expected to unify Microsoft's operating systems, combining Windows Phone, Windows RT, standard Windows and the Xbox OS into the one platform. The page for the Windows Technical Preview for Enterprise, which has since been taken down, is being prepared ahead of Microsoft's event on Tuesday where the next version of Windows will be officially unveiled. It appears as though Microsoft will launch the Technical Preview shortly after the event, falling into an expected "October" launch timeframe.

Unboxing videos are typically uneventful and repetitive but that certainly can’t be said of Carphone Warehouse’s recent unboxing of the Sony Xperia Z3 smartphone. That’s because the mobile phone retailer elected to unbox the handset in its natural habitat – underwater. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uIf9GdCzY_Y The host of the world’s first underwater unboxing does a good job of showing everything that’s included, from the soggy cardboard to the included headphones (apparently good for listening to the sounds of whales and dolphins). And what underwater unboxing would be complete without a diver selfie?

The first hard drive reliability report was released by Backblaze in January of this year, revealing that Hitachi and Seagate drives are the most and least reliable respectively. Since then, the team at Backblaze has been testing more and more drives, updating their reliability report for September 2014. With a collection of 34,881 drives storing 100 petabytes of data, Backblaze has a fairly good idea of which brands are the most reliable. Like they discovered in their January report, Seagate is still the least reliable brand, and Hitachi is the most reliable. However, they did record some interesting trends concerning some popular drive models. The failure rate of Seagate's three terabyte drives has risen from 9% in the original report to 15%, while the failure rate of Western Digital models of the same capacity have also risen from 4% to 7%. Hitachi drives are considerably more reliable, with their 3 TB offerings having an annual failure rate of around 1%. The single most unreliable drive in Backblaze's data center is Seagate's 1.5 TB Barracuda 7200.11, with an annual failure rate of 24.9%. You can check out all the failure rates from the 13 drives they tested with in their full report. It's worth keeping in mind that these reliability figures relate to data center usage patterns, which don't necessarily correspond to desktop use. However if you do want the most reliable drives for your system, Hitachi seems to be the best choice.

Kevin Mitnick, a famous (former) hacker who is now a security consultant, has ventured into a new business: buying and selling high-end zero-day exploits. Dubbed Absolute Zero Day Exploit Exchange, the six-month-old service sells exclusive unpatched exploits to corporate as well as government clients for over a whopping $100,000. For the uninitiated, a zero-day exploit is an attack taking advantage of a vulnerability for which no official patch has been released by the vendor. This means that no days (zero days) have elapsed between the time the vulnerability was discovered and the time an official patch was made available. Mitnick says the service offers exploits developed both by his own team as well as by independent researchers. “Researchers find them, they sell them to us for X, we sell them to clients for Y and make the margin in between”, he said. There is also a premium option under which the company digs up new zero-days that target whatever software the customer specifies. When asked what will his customers do with those exploits, he said the company never asks the purpose. He also declined to name any of the company's clients, although the newly-launched project website offers some hints. Considering that Mitnick doesn't have a good history with the government, it's ironic that he is indirectly helping law enforcement spy on people. However, he refutes the claim, saying that there's a screening process in place. “I’m not interested in helping government agencies spy on people”, he says. “Customers want to buy this information, and they’ll pay a certain price. If they pass our screening process, we’ll work with them”. Kevin Mitnick was once known as the "World’s Most Wanted" computer hacker. While in Federal custody, he was even placed in so litary confinement reportedly because law enforcement officials had convinced the judge that he could “start a nuclear war by whistling into a pay phone”.

Are you familiar with Apple Wave, the revolutionary new charging feature that’s bundled with iOS 8? It uses microwave frequencies to charge your phone. All you need to do for a rapid recharge is place your iOS 8 device in a microwave for a minute and a half. Wait, what? That’s the gist of a bogus iOS 8 ad currently making the rounds on social media. As Digital Trends points out, the ad originated from the 4chan message boards – the same group responsible for the iOS 7 waterproof ad last year. While virtually nobody that reads this site would fall for such a thing, I’m sure most of us could think of at least a couple of people in our lives that might be gullible enough to give it a try. And just so you can’t say I didn’t say so, don’t put your iDevice in the microwave.

Apple announced this morning they sold more than 10 million iPhones over the weekend, eclipsing the previous record of nine million with the launch of last year’s iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c. The figure is no doubt impressive but there’s more here than first meets the eye. In a press release on the matter, Apple CEO Tim Cook said sales for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus exceeded their expectations for launch weekend and they couldn’t be happier. He added that they could have sold more iPhones had inventory held up and they are working hard to fill orders as quickly as possible. The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus launched on September 19 in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the UK. Notably absent from this list is China, considered by some as Apple’s largest market. The iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c simultaneously launched in China but not this time around. As The Wall Street Journal notes, Chinese state media attributes the delayed launch to regulatory issues. Had China been included in the launch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, opening weekend sales would have no doubt been much higher. Instead, it seems that some in the country are looking to the black market to get their hands on Apple’s latest. It’s worth pointing out that Apple didn’t detail individual phone sales so we have no real way of knowing which of the two new models customers prefer. And even if we did have that figure, the fact that Apple ran out of inventory would skew the results.

The Pirate Bay is a top destination among peer-to-peer file sharers and the most visited torrent directory on the web. With an Alexa ranking of 89, the site hosts millions of visitors each day and as you can imagine, it takes quite a bit of processing power to keep everything running smoothly. If you recall, The Pirate Bay abandoned its servers and took to the cloud in October 2012 in an effort to stay one step ahead of authorities looking to shut them down. The move also meant better uptime and cheaper hosting – a win / win for the site’s admins. Consequently, the move also meant that a dedicated page showing the site’s server setup was no longer relevant. It’s something true geeks liked to keep an eye on which is why Torrent Freak recently asked the team for an update. According to The Pirate Bay’s admin team, the site uses 21 virtual machines (VMs) that are hosted at different providers – an increase of four machines over the past two years (more traffic requires more machines). Eight of the VMs are used to serve web pages while another six are dedicated to handling searches. Two machines are used to run the site’s database. That leaves five VMs which the team said are used for tasks like load balancing, statistics, torrent storage, the proxy site on port 80 and the controller. Collectively, the machines use 182GB of RAM and 94 processor cores with total storage capacity of 620GB. Interestingly enough, the team said the commercial cloud hosting providers they use have no clue they are hosting The Pirate Bay as all traffic goes through a load balancer to mask what the other VMs are doing.

Samsung broke the mold when it announced the Galaxy Alpha last month, the first smartphone in the company’s portfolio to ditch the familiar plastic chassis in favor of a metallic frame. Samsung said the phone would be offered in the US this month and today, they revealed pricing and availability. AT&T will be the exclusive carrier for the Galaxy Alpha in the US. It’ll be priced at $612.99 with no annual commitment or $199.99 with a two-year service agreement. Alternately, buyers can finance the smartphone through AT&T’s Next program. Customers that opt to use the Next program will pay zero down (only tax is due at the time of sale) and equal monthly installments that are added to their monthly wireless bill. For the Galaxy Alpha, expect to pay an additional $25.55 for 24 months with Next 18 or $30.65 for 20 months with Next 12. The Galaxy Alpha is no doubt a premium handset in terms of aesthetics but it lacks many of the premium features and specifications found in Samsung’s flagship smartphones. Instead, it’s probably best classified as a high-end, mid-range offering. It’ll ship with a 4.7-inch display operating at 1,280 x 720. Under the hood is a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC clocked at 2.5GHz, 2GB of RAM and up to 32GB of internal storage. There’s also a 12-megapixel rear camera and a 2.1-megaixel front-facing shooter along for the ride. It'll be pre-loaded with Android 4.4.4 Kitkat out of the box. Look for the Galaxy Alpha to launch this Friday, September 26, in black, white and gold color schemes online and at AT&T retail stores.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group set a new record for the largest US-listed initial public offering last Friday. Today, the company extended that title to become the world’s largest IPO as underwriters exercised an option to buy an additional 48 million shares in the wake of heavy demand from investors. Alibaba raised $21.8 billion last Friday and with the additional shares on the table, the company has now raised a total of $25 billion. In doing so, Alibaba surpassed the Agricultural Bank of China as the previous IPO record holder at $22.1 billion back in 2010. The extra shares came from Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma, Vice Chairman Joseph Tsai and Yahoo. All said and done, Yahoo was the largest seller in the IPO as they offloaded 140.3 million shares total – eclipsing Alibaba’s 123 million offering. The IPO price was set at $68 although shares opened up more than 35 percent above that and climbed even higher to 38 percent. As Bloomberg points out, that was the biggest first-day jump for an IPO of at least $10 billion. As of writing, shares are valued at $90 each – down 4.14 percent on the day. Alibaba may not be a household name in the US but as the IPO has shown, they’re a really big deal. The Chinese company owns and operates two main websites, Taobao Marketplace and Taobao Mall – both of which sell goods to consumers. The company has been described as a mix between Amazon and eBay although they offer more products and have a much larger footprint.

Oculus VR unveiled a revised version of its virtual reality headset during the Oculus Connect developer conference over the weekend. Dubbed Crescent Bay, the new headset adds integrated audio via built-in headphones as well as 360-degree motion tracking. Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe was quick to point out that this is not the consumer version of the Oculus Rift nor is it a developer kit although it is much closer to it than anything we’ve seen thus far. Think of it as an internal prototype. He also noted that the leap between the Oculus Rift Developer Kit 2 and Crescent Bay is as significant as the jump from Developer Kit 1 to Developer Kit 2. In addition to the built-in headphones and 360-degree tracking, the new visor is lighter and features better ergonomics – improvements that’ll no doubt reduce fatigue during lengthy gaming sessions. Oculus is using the same array of LED lights that were found on the Crystal Cove kit which helps track movements more accurately. The the screen resolution has once again been bumped up, we're told. Early rumors suggest it could be the same 1440p display found in the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note 4 which certainly seems plausible given the fact that the two companies are now working together in the virtual reality space. As evident by the integrated headphones (which aren’t mandatory; gamers can still use their own headphones if they choose), Oculus VR is dedicating a lot of resources to audio development. As GameSpot notes, the company is developing its ownaudio tracking software that’ll help establish presence while in the virtual world. In fact, they’re working just as aggressively on this aspect as they are the visuals. There's still no word yet on when we can expect to see a consumer version of the Rift.

Earlier this year, a rumor surfaced claiming Microsoft’s Xbox One was destined to be the first major gaming console sold in China since the country lifted its 13-year ban on video game systems. China Telecom and Microsoft verified the news in July with the Redmond-based company setting a launch date of September 23. Unfortunately, it looks as though Chinese gamers that have been anxiously counting down the days until this Tuesday’s launch will have to wait a bit longer. In a press release obtained by GeekWire, Microsoft said that despite strong and steady progress, they are going to need a bit more time to deliver the best experiences possible for their fans in China. In order to deliver on their promise of providing first-rate gaming and entertainment experiences, they need to reschedule the launch of the Xbox One. Interestingly enough, Microsoft is still planning to go ahead with a launch event planned for Monday at the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai. What’s more, the company will be giving away 100 free Xbox One consoles to lucky recipients in attendance. Winners can expect to receive their systems when the console launches, Microsoft said. Microsoft didn’t provide another solid launch date, instead only promising to deliver the console by the end of this year. At that time, those that have pre-ordered the system will be the first to receive it as well as an undisclosed added bonus.

Google has confirmed that Android L, the upcoming version of its Android operating system, will have data encryption enabled by default, making it nearly impossible for law enforcement agencies to force the company to turn over personal information on the devices running the company's mobile OS. Android has in fact offered encryption on some devices since 2011, but as the feature required manual activation, only a small subset of users have known how to turn it on. "For over three years, Android has offered encryption, and keys are not stored off of the device, so they cannot be shared with law enforcement", Google spokesperson Niki Christoff said. "As part of our next Android release, encryption will be enabled by default out of the box, so you won't even have to think about turning it on". Although Christoff indicated that the company has been working on the feature for months, interestingly, the announcement came just a day after Apple announced enhanced encryption for iOS 8, which according to the Cupertino-based company, makes it technically impossible for them to decrypt a device to access user data, even if law enforcement agencies request it. Earlier this month, hackers leaked several private, nude photos of celebrities stored on Apple's servers. Although the iPhone maker later determined that noneof its systems were breached, saying that it was a targeted attack on usernames, passwords, and security questions, the company beefed up its security by rolling out two-step authentication for iCloud. Apple chief Tim Cook also published an open letter detailing how the company handles personal information of users, as well as government requests for the same. While the move by both companies towards default encryption is laudable, it's definitely not the last nail in the coffin, as there's still a weak link: cloud storage. The law enforcement agencies could still force the companies to turn over user data stored on their cloud servers, and there have been instances when this has been done proactively.

PayPal has announced that its PayPal Here app is now available on Android tablets in select markets, including the US, UK, Australia, Japan, and Hong Kong. The app is similar to the one already available on Android smartphones, allowing you to accept credit or debit cards and mobile payments with PayPal. "We want you, the businesses we work with, to be able to accept payments wherever you are and on whatever device works best for your business", the company said, adding that the market research firm Gartner reported that 62 percent of tablets purchased in 2013 were Android. PayPal Here is PayPal's dongle-based payment solution that allows businesses to accept payments using the company's card reader and app. Features include the ability to manage items so you can customize your inventory and products, monitor sales activity, set things like discounts, taxes and tips, and reading card swipes no matter what screen you are in so you can make a sale. According to the Google Play app description, there are certain Android tablets that PayPal has verified to work with the PayPal Here card reader. Asus Nexus 7″ 2013 Asus Nexus 10″ Asus Transformer Pad TF300T Samsung Galaxy Note 10″ Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7″ Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10″ Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10″ Samsung Galaxy Tab 4-7″ Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10″ Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro Sony Experia Z Tablet. If your tablet isn't listed, that doesn't mean it is not supported, it's just that the company isn't guaranteeing anything. The PayPal Here app for Android tablets is available for download on the Google Play store now.

Apple started rolling a revamped version of iCloud this week with the arrival of iOS 8. Dubbed iCloud Drive, the cloud storage service is now more akin to Dropbox and Google Drive in that you can actually access and store stuff through a file system. But while iPhone users who also own a Mac are advised to wait for Yosemite before making the switch, Windows users are ready to go. Today the company pushed out an updated version of iCloud for Windows that adds an iCloud Drive folder to the Favorites section within Windows File Explorer. Inside you’ll see a folder for each application you’ve setup to synchronize data though iCloud, and you’ll be able to drag and drop or create your own files and folders as well -- again, like Dropbox. Aside from acting as storage, iCloud Drive of Windows can also sync with your Photo Stream and sync Safari bookmarks with Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome browsers. People with Outlook 2007 or later installed also have the option to sync iCloud mail, calendars, contacts, and reminders. Windows users can download the latest iCloud for Windows here. As mentioned above, Mac users are advised to hold off upgrading until OS X Yosemite is available, otherwise documents on their Macs won’t be kept up to date with documents on devices with iOS 8 or on iCloud.com. Those that are already on the Yosemite public beta, however, should have no issue. In addition to the features available on Windows, iCloud users on Macs will get iCloud Keychain password sync, and Apple’s "Find My Device" functionality.

Google has previously expressed its interest in continuing its investment for original content on YouTube. The company recently started a program to offer its content creators better production facilities, among other things, and now reports suggest Google is ready to dump millions into original content and partner channels once again. While the company has already invested quite a bit in its original content push, it seems as though Google wants to expand YouTube’s reach in this arena much further. The funding program is mainly designed to foster existing YouTube stars who already have large followings on the site and to help convince them to keep their content on YouTube. Google will essentially pay these creators to produce specific shows as they did previously, but with a larger financial investment than before, according to reports. We are hearing that the investments will cover content ranging different formats and lengths. The company is said to be tapping Hollywood producers for some content as well, but is mainly focused on existing YouTube talent. The site will provide top visibility on the site for these creators and hopes to help them “not only fulfill their creative ambitions but also deliver new material to their millions of fans on YouTube,” head of YouTube Originals Alex Carloss wrote. All things considering, this sounds like a positive move for both the creators and the viewers wile helping YouTube move towards an arguably better entertainment experience. The new content in question is set to debut sometime next year.

Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison stepped down from his post as CEO on Thursday. In his absence, co-presidents Mark Hurd and Safra Catz will serve as co-CEOs according to a company press release on the matter. Hurd will continue to run sales, marketing and strategy for Oracle while manufacturing, finance and legal departments will report to Catz. The 70-year-old executive won’t be leaving the company he helped create, however, as he has been elected to the position of chairman of Oracle’s board. Ellison replaces Jeff Henley, who served as chairman for the last 10 years. Henley will stick around as vice chairman, the company said. In a statement on the matter, the president of Oracle’s board, Dr. Michael Boskin, said Page made it very clear that he wants to keep working full time and focus his energy on product engineering, technology development and strategy. As such, the Silicon Valley legend will also serve as chief technology officer with all software and hardware engineering departments reporting directly to him. Boskin added that Hurd and Catz are exceptional executives who have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to lead, manage and grow the company. The board is thrilled that the best senior executive team in the industry will continue to move the company forward into a bright future, he concluded. Ellis has led Oracle to a market capitalization of more than $185 billion with annual revenue of $38 billion since founding the company in 1977.

Sony has once again revised their forecast for this financial year, quadrupling their expected losses thanks to a $1.7 billion "impairment" that relates to their smartphone division. On top of their earlier prediction, Sony is now anticipating a loss as high as 230 billion yen (US$2.1 billion). The company's smartphone division was originally focused on "achieving significant sales growth", however it appears as though that strategy hasn't exactly worked out. Moving forwards, Sony will now focus on delivering stable profits by reducing risk, concentrating on flagship devices, and cutting down on the number of mid-range devices on offer. As part of the company's statement outlining the revision to their expected financial losses, Sony outlined a reason behind the poor performance of their mobile communications unit. According to them, a "significant change" in the competitive smartphone market meant that a shift in strategy was necessary to become profitable once more. One of the devices Sony is hoping will improve their fortunes is the Xperia Z3, which is set to launch in a few weeks' time. The smartphone is the company's flagship for the second half of the year, and packs only a few minor changes over the Xperia Z2 from earlier this year.

Back in July, BitTorrent unveiled Bleep, a decentralized communication platform designed to protect user metadata and anonymity. At the time, the app worked only on Windows 7 and 8 and remained invite-only. Starting today Bleep has now been made available to all, with new apps for Mac and Android. Bleep allows you to import your Google address book contacts, and invite friends via email, SMS, QR code, or a public key. If you have an existing account, you can now move it to your Android device and receive inbound messages across all devices. However, as the application is still in Alpha, there are some known issues. For example, you cannot send offline photos or group chats asynchronously, you'll need to set the app to “Wi-Fi Only” unless you have an unlimited data plan, you cannot move an existing account from Android to the desktop, and while you can receive messages on multiple devices, messages sent will not be seen across all devices. The company claims that Bleep offers end to end encryption, and your messages are only stored locally on your device. You can also easily delete your encrypted message history, leaving no trace of the conversation behind. You can create a Bleep account using an email or mobile phone number. There is also an option to sign up without the need to provide any personal details.

Amazon’s German portal may have jumped the gun by prematurely posting what appears to be a new version of the company’s Kindle e-reader. The device in question, known as the Kindle Voyage, features a few new features as well as a high-resolution, 6-inch screen with a pixel density of 300 PPI. The listing was quickly removed but not before virtually every specification of the device was seen and shared. As The Verge notes, the specs list hinted that the Voyage will have a new page press sensor embedded in the bezel. When the bezel is lightly pressed, the on-screen page will turn. There was also mention of an intelligent front lighting system. The e-reader is said to be just 8mm thin and weigh 186 grams. If true, that means the Voyage will be a good bit thinner and lighter than the Kindle Paperwhite. That said, it’s unclear at this hour if the Voyage will replace the Paperwhite or if it will simply be launched as a premium product with the Paperwhite remaining in Amazon’s portfolio. The Kindle Voyage will be offered in two different versions, one with Wi-Fi only and another with a 3G cellular radio. Pricing for the Wi-Fi model is reportedly set at 187 euros ($244.79) while the 3G model will command 249 euros ($322.50). That’s certainly a lot to spend on an e-reader when you consider the Paperwhite currently starts at $119 but the new features might be worth the extra dough for avid readers. The Kindle Voyage was listed with a European launch date of November 4.

Yelp has agreed to pay $450,000 to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that the company collected names and other personal information of children under 13 without the consent of their parents, a clear violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Yelp had a policy wherein users could only register through its website, which has a screening mechanism to prohibit those under 13 from registering, but that was until 2009, when the company introduced a registration feature in its smartphone apps. In its complaint, the FTC had said that the business-review company, which had an average of about 138 million monthly unique visitors in Q2 this year, failed to implement a similar screening mechanism in its mobile apps, allowing the iOS and Android versions of the app to accept registrations and collect information from even those who were underaged. This went on until April last year. Yelp has clarified that the situation stemmed from a “bug” in their mobile registration process. The company also said that only about 0.02% of users who actually completed the registration process during that time period provided an underage birth date, adding that they have "good reason to believe that many of them were actually adults". The problem has been fixed now and the affected accounts have been closed. The news comes just months after tech giants Google and Apple settled with the FTC over in-app purchases by children.

A vulnerability has been found in the Android Browser that could potentially have serious privacy implications for its users. If the flaw in the browser is exploited correctly, a malicious third party could gain access to passwords, cookies, keyboard input, and more with a simple JavaScript injection. The flaw involves the Android Browser's Same Origin Policy, which should prevent one website from gaining access to content from another website. As the researcher who discovered the bug, Rafay Baloch, has realized, if you craft your JavaScript code in a particular way, the Same Origin Policy can be ignored completely thereby giving the code free reign over browser content. The vulnerability was initially reported to Google by Baloch, who told him that they couldn't reproduce the issue. However, Google has since begun listening after reports of the issue became more widespread, and currently they say they're working on a solution. The Android Browser is a discontinued browser that forms part of the AOSP software package which is included with many smartphones. While the browser used to be the default in Android, since Android 4.2 Google has switched to Chrome, which is not vulnerable in the same manner. In Android 4.4 the last remaining portions of the Android Browser (embedded webpages in apps) were removed in favor of Chrome. Despite the switch to Chrome, around half of the total Android user base still uses the Android Browser for one reason or another. Although Google is developing a fix to the problem, Android updates are typically quite slow at reaching all the necessary users, so many people could remain vulnerable for the foreseeable future. If you're an Android user currently using the Android Browser, we recommend switching to an alternate browser to keep safe, such as Chrome (the Android default) or others like Firefox and Opera.

Microsoft has unveiled a new keyboard that's compatible with iPhones, iPads, Android devices, and Windows tablets -- but not Windows Phone smartphones. Dubbed Universal Mobile Keyboard, the device will be available in October for an estimated retail price of $79.95. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sdPT-TzgU84 The keyboard can be paired with up to three devices running different operating systems, and there's a button that allows you to switch between the devices. It also offers platform-specific keys, including the Android Home button, OS X's Command key, and Windows' Control key. The new keyboard has a protective, detachable cover that also doubles as a stand for your smartphone or tablet. Microsoft says that users can type more than double the words per minute they’d normally type using the device’s own on-screen keyboard. Closing the cover shuts the device off. The keyboard is compatible with Apple iOS v6+, Android 4+, Windows 8+, and Windows RT devices, and uses Bluetooth to connect to the various tablets and phones it supports. The reason the keyboard isn't compatible with Windows Phone is that the OS doesn't support the Bluetooth Human Interface Device (HID) keyboard protocol. In terms of battery life, Microsoft claims that the device will last for around six months on a single charge. The Universal Mobile Keyboard is launching first in the US and Canada, and is expected to arrive in other markets “soon”. Aside from the keyboard, Microsoft also revealed a new Xbox One controller and cable for Windows and two new mice: Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500 Limited Edition ($29.95) and Arc Touch Bluetooth Mouse ($69.95).

Global smartphone shipments are expected to approach 1.2 billion this year, up 19 percent over the 985 million smartphones shipped last year according to a new report from mobile research specialist Juniper Research. Much like we’ve seen with tablets, the market is expected to be driven by growth primarily in emerging markets. It is in these regions that low-cost economy ($75-$150) and ultra-economy (sub-$75) smartphones will continue their surge in sales and adoption. As such, the gap between the growing emerging markets and the stagnating mature markets is closing, the firm points out. Developed markets have been showing signs of slower growth for some time now due to saturation. Once the majority of the population has a smartphone, growth slows as the majority of sales shift away from new buyers toward those looking to upgrade. Barring damage or a lost / stolen device, the average buyer typically holds onto a handset for a couple of years. Elsewhere, Juniper Research notes that Apple and Samsung will account for nearly 45 percent of the global smartphones shipped this year. Samsung has a wide range of smartphones with releases coming every few months it seems while Apple has focused on a single flagship handset each year dating back to 2007. It’s two very different strategies but as evident by their combined reach, both approaches are very successful. The firm also adds that the average selling price of a smartphone will decline globally to reach $274 by 2019, no doubt fueled by advances in technology and increased competition.

The future of Android Silver, Google’s rumored premium support initiative for its mobile operating system, is in jeopardy. The program has been put on hold with some inside the company questioning whether or not it would be successful if launched according to a new report from The Information. As the narrative goes, retailers, smartphone manufacturers and wireless carriers weren’t entirely sold on Android Silver to begin with. It probably didn’t help matters when Google sales boss Nikesh Arora left the company back in July to take a position with SoftBank. In addition to other duties, the executive was reportedly in charge of the search giant’s business relationships with wireless carriers and handset makers. If you recall, Android Silver is the premium branding and support initiative that first hit the rumor mill back in April. According to scuttlebutt, qualifying devices would be required to run the latest version of Android with little or no manufacturer / carrier customization (bloatware). Whenever a user buys a qualifying device, trained staff at the wireless carrier would be instructed to help the buyer transfer any data over to the new phone. What’s more, the buyer would have access to round-the-clock customer support. In the interim, Google’s smartphone division has plenty to keep it busy. Just yesterday, Google kicked off its Android One program in India – a reference program that manufacturers can use to build low-cost smartphones for developing markets. Devices released as part of the program will get software updates directly from Google which allows for a better overall user experience.